Chess by Stefan Zweig. ' a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force o.
Table of contents
Read reviews that mention zweig stefan human classic novella games austrian german czentovic germany moves nazi nazis fascinating mirko champion ship torture war genius. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. An incredible little volume of power, terror, and depth, this novella is an allegory of the brilliant insanity of obsession contrasted with the brutal insanity of the Nazis of World War II. It is tightly scripted and exasperatingly intricate expositions of the thought process during isolation. This is widely considered to be his last text before his suicide, and I became interested in reading his work both as I found the Penguin Mini Modern Classic on Kindle and learned that Wes Anderson had heavily based Grand Budapest Hotel on two of his novels.
Chess, A Novel by Stefan Zweig
From what I remember from my undergraduate work with European literature and European Modernism with Dr. William Keough, while during his lifetime he was an incredibly famous and well revered author, Zweig has largely been forgotten in English Literature in translation in the 21st Century. I absolutely was enthralled by this powerful little book, and I was awash in the same nail biting suspense as the characters in the text were. The story is glorious in its execution, subtly accusing the worlds worst atrocities and dehumanization on the darkest corners of the human mind while using the mentally taxing and mind expanding game of chess as a symbol for both war, power, and the strategic helplessness of the pieces on the board.
This was my first time through this book, and it is reminiscent of the simplicity and power of Camus in many ways. What Zweig presents is so much more. It is a stressful and wholly exciting volume, slim in size but staggeringly broad in content and context. One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. This is a great little story by an old master -- the Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig. It was written at the time that Hitler was ascendant in Germany. While it is not a war story, the looming cataclysm hovers in the background.
It takes place in the first class section of an ocean liner. If you like viewing old black and white ocean liner movies from the s and s, you will love the ambience created in the story. The chief protagonist is a businessman who some time earlier was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo for a period of one year. He was never physically tortured, but was psychologically stretched to the limits. In order to survive the ordeal, he taught himself chess from a chess book he lifted from one of his interrogators. He memorized the moves of all grand tournament games contained in the book, which serves him well when he comes up a bona fide grand master on the ocean liner.
As with all Zweig stories, character development is first rate. A chess lover amongst other things who I could never beat. On top , it reminded me the rapping conversation among our parents about if the writer was crazy or not volt Zweig egy bolondos? The book is simple put: One person found this helpful. The parallelism in this book is not difficult to grasp. B was subjected to one form of fascism by the National Socialist interrogators.
The interrogators took their time in pushing him to the brink of insanity. B is confronted with someone who also took him time pushing Dr.
B to the brink of insanity. The sequalae of the National Socialists and Czentovic was a common ability to cause stress to Dr. The features of the National Socialists were sufficient to stress Dr. B out and the features of Czentovic the same. It would be logical to conclude that there is possibly some overlap between Czentovic and the National Socialists. Czentovic is a cold, reclusive, unemotional chess talent and the National Socialists likely similar.
It would be reasonable to conclude that Stefan Zweig is drawing an inference that the National Socialists are idiots like Czentovic is. Unfortunately, there is one logical flaw. Zweig is taking a microcosmic observation one Czentovic and drawing a conclusion about a larger group. If that is the case, then there may be a gap in Zweig's logic. If it is the other way around, that Zweig was drawing an inference from a macrocosmic pool i. My interest in the game of chess is similar to the author's and I have the same curiosity about really good chess players. I was introduced to the game when I was quite young by two neighbor boys who were older to me.
They taught me the rules and then beat me in every game we played. I didn't like it at all and hated the game. But over the years I've been curious about people who are good at the game and have always wondered how smart or intelligent these people really are. In this short novel, the world chess champion, Mirko Czentovic, is aboard a passenger ship that is making a tip from New York to Buenos Aires. The author, who is aboard the ship as well, is eager to speak to the champion but is without success.
But with the help of some money from a rich, overbearing enthusiast named McConnor, Czentovic agrees to engage them in a game of chess. They lose quickly, but McConnor challenges Czentovic to another game. This time a stranger joins the party and directs McConnor and co. Czentovic now wants a rematch and to everyone it looks like there could be a legitimate challenger to Czentovic's genius.
These two men have vastly different approaches to the game, and each is obsessed with it in his own way. The game and the anticipation of it is wonderfully exciting. But what will stay with me for a long time is the life experiences that shaped their passion for the game and how we are able to glimpse into the dark heart of mankind. See all 41 reviews.
Product details
Most recent customer reviews. Published 7 months ago. Published 11 months ago. Published 1 year ago. Published on May 21, Published on May 14, Published on March 15, Published on March 3, Published on February 18, Instead of a Letter: Posthumous Papers of a Living Author.
- .
- Air Belles Fleurs from Proserpine Libro 3 No. 5 - Score.
- Advances in Immunology: 55.
Where The Blue Begins. Musings of an American Artist in Japan. The Informer Illustrated Edition. The Word Lover's Delight.
Join Kobo & start eReading today
Editors of Captivate Network. Letter from an Unknown Woman. The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig. The Mystery of the Downs. Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman. Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories. Amok and other Stories. The Governess and Other Stories. A Drama in Nine Scenes. Messages from a Lost World.
Wondrak and Other Stories. Una partida de ajedrez. Twilight and Moonbeam Alley. Jeremiah A Drama in Nine Scenes. The Man and His Work. How to write a great review.
The review must be at least 50 characters long. The title should be at least 4 characters long. Your display name should be at least 2 characters long. At Kobo, we try to ensure that published reviews do not contain rude or profane language, spoilers, or any of our reviewer's personal information. You submitted the following rating and review. We'll publish them on our site once we've reviewed them. Item s unavailable for purchase.
- Cuando los cerditos negros sueñan (Spanish Edition)?
- Share this title.
- Embryo Oddities (The Pendulum Will Swing Book 5).
- Chess Story by Stefan Zweig?
- Marketing In Cyberspace: The Dynamic Manager’s Handbook Of Social Media Marketing (The Dynamic Manag.
Please review your cart. You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. Continue shopping Checkout Continue shopping. Chi ama i libri sceglie Kobo e inMondadori.